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Lair of the Pathetic Worm

If any of my 42 readers have not dropped by the Bitchy Jones’ Diary blog, stop your one-handed typing and click over to there right now. I mean it – I know you’re here to wank to my hot chastity porn, but this is important. I want you – especially you married men who self-identify as “submissive” – to go read about why your wives are not turning into the leather-clad bitch dommes from hell simply because you’ve hung $200 worth of polycarbonate plastic from your wabbly bits.

Bitchy Jones, in one of her latest rants about what doesn’t work for her with regard to female domination, tossed out an off-hand remark that simply hasn’t gotten the attention that it deserves:

You think it might have something to do with the message you keep transmitting about how female domination is all about having relationship with an intentionally sexually repellent and inadequate man? Which isn’t submission, by the way.

Let me tell you what submission really is.

Submission is about being desired. Submission is about being overwhelmed by another person’s sexual desire for you. Yes, you, you sexy fucking submissive bastard.

The implications may not be immediately clear, so let me illustrate this with a story.

A while back, a woman wrote into one of the chastity groups with a concern. Her husband wanted her to be more dominant, and so he locked himself into a CB3000, insisting that he was doing it out of respect for her. After a week or so during which he pampered her, did housework, and gave her backrubs, and did all of those other things befitting a goddess, she unlocked him with the intention of rewarding herself with some hot sex. She tried to tease him with a little oral stimulation, when he pushed her away, explaining that as a submissive, he could no longer enjoy her ministrations. Oral, he went on to explain, is not something that Dommes do to undeserving subs as it is beneath them.

Likewise, he was determined to have her keep him locked away for extended periods of time, all the while maintaining that it was out of respect for her as her new role as a Goddess. He came up with a point system in which he had to earn orgasmic release by doing chores, giving her a certain number of orgasms, and by doing other such things.

Naturally, she was puzzled by this. She wondered if this meant he no longer desired sex; more to the point, she wondered if he was intentionally keeping himself locked away because he no longer desired her. Yes, he called her “Goddess”, but she certainly didn’t feel like one. Her husband, her partner of many years suddenly acted as if he no longer wanted to have sex with her.

What kind of Goddess wants that?

This is an admonishment to those men who have taken on the conversion project of trying to turn a vanilla partner into their dream domme. Your partner for the last 5, 10 or 25 years has been having a relationship with you. After all those years of sometimes hot (or sometimes not) sex, you’re on the verge of changing your relationship with her. You spend some time talking, showing her catalogue items, showing her web pages, and letting her read my stories. You’ve bought the thigh boots from Stormy Leather, the basket of squishy vibrating toys from Blowfish, and the extra-secure handcuffs from the Stockroom, yet your Goddess is still resisting that big breakthrough. You spend a week without an orgasm, and you’re both dripping with arousal, but you think that she doesn’t “get it.”

Listen up, you big doofus: Your partner hasn’t been having a relationship with the squishy vibrating toys, she’s been having a sexual relationship with you! You’ve talked her into trying something kinky; she’s totally hot from making you beg, from seeing your desire. You’ve been attentive and affectionate all week long, and now she wants to be pleasured; yet you tell her that you’re going to deny her the emotional pleasure of being intimate with you?

Who’s in charge here, anyway?

Here’s a clue: Your partner isn’t turned on by those leather and steel handcuffs, she’s turned on because you are aroused with desire for her. Your desire fuels her own, and she wants you. And a Goddess gets to have whatever the hell she wants, right?

Take the hint.

Bitchy Jone’s article focused on the cuckold kink, in which men try to convince their partners about how much happier they – the partner – would be if only they’d have sex with some other men:

Oh and all the stuff where it so blatantly comes from the man and is then presented as the woman’s sexual desire. All that just makes me itch. I mean, you only have to look at the number of toppish women in this thread saying, hell, yeah, what’s in it for me, to see that cuckolding really isn’t about pleasuring your partner. Most women would rather have sex with their partners.

But the same point applies to any other aspect of these conversion projects: most men who profess to be interested in their partner’s pleasure seem to act as if they’re only interested in indulging their own kinks.

And that brings me to another point. It’s this indulgence of one’s own kinks under the guise of being pleasure for her that gives much femdom a bad rep in public. Like it or not, female domination is presented in the mainstream media in pretty much the same way that it’s been done since Leopold von Sacher-Masoch: cruel, detached, manipulative women scorning the affections of the pathetic men who grovel at their feet.

No! No, stop wanking and listen:

If you have, say, a fetish for how sexually repellent and inadequate you are and you want a woman to explain that to you, whilst laughing merrily. Fine. But this isn’t what I want and I don’t want these things representing me. Or being the primary representation of my sexuality out in the wider world. […] It’s the prevailing culture I rail against. The perceptions. What potential dom women see and are repulsed by.

Are you conversion project guys listening? June Cleaver is not going to become a Wicked Wanda, because
a) her conception of a dominatrix is, in many ways, repulsive to her, and,
b) her conception of a submissive even more so.

That is why she has so many times been turned off by your suggestions of leather and riding crops. Your partner wants to think of you as a strong, attractive man – not the “pathetic worm” of the BDSM stereotypes. Ignoring the psychological symbolism of your penis as the pathetic worm, ask yourself this: if your partner is really a Goddess and worthy of your worship, what could possibly induce her to continue a relationship with somebody who professes to be unworthy of her attentions?

And since Google tells me that dozens of you find this place by searching “tom allen’s chastity blog,” let’s end this with yet another pronouncement from Bitchy Jones:

I like chastity. A lot. […] So long as I get to take the thing off and have access whenever I want. That’s the key. So long as I have access I’m happy to take away his. I’m happy to own a man’s cock. I like cock. I don’t like my-useless-penis very much at all, but I can really get into my-useful-penis-that-has-been-locked-up-by-a-horrible-sadist.

Again, Ms. Jones points up something that is often completely overlooked by chastity aficionados – indeed, often by our cultural media displays: women enjoy sex. No, really they do. But they enjoy what they enjoy, and not some ideal that’s been fostered upon them by our culture, and certainly not some ideals that dominate the media of what D/s is all about.

MM – I’m sure you’re sick and tired of hearing these rants. But consider – you’re one of those young, hipster, urban BDSMer types. You’d never top from the bottom, and if you did, then you’d admit it and have a weeks’ worth of angst over it.

But consider, too, that there are thousands of people who are exploring this who (and you know this is true) get all of their learning from the Gor chatrooms and bad porn. It can’t hurt to repeat the message once in a while.

MWK – welcome to the Edge of Vanilla. We used to have lovely gifts for the newcomers, but some people kept changing their nicks so they could get a dozen or so.

Richard – that was the funniest thing I’ve seen all week. But just in case, I started working on a pilot script.
Any thoughts for a title?

I think I still deserve a lovely welcome gift. I would never try to manipulate you into giving me something by changing my nick. Well. I might, but I didn’t.

This is a fabulous article, Tom. I’m so sick of being approached by people who disguise (to me and to themselves) what they want as something that I want. And I’m malleable enough myself that sometimes it takes me a while to clue in.

Tom, you’re right. I’m in a bitchy mood myself sometimes these days and it’s not actually fair of me to want you all to put me in a good mood. You just have this great track record of doing just that. It’s all your fault, really. ;)

That said, you’ve always inspired me by your never-ending persistence. I know how often you respond to these kinds of things on the various Yahoo! groups and other boards I lurk around, and you’re quite possibly the most outspoken voice of intelligence that these places have ever had.

I’m jealous of you in that regard too, because I know I could never be that voice. Like you said, I’m a twenty-something, young, urban, BDSMer. What’s there for a boy like me to say to men like that?

and you’re quite possibly the most outspoken voice of intelligence that these places have ever had.

I didn’t really have anything to add – I just wanted to bask in such a great compliment by repeating it.

*ahem*
Actually, the owners and moderators of several groups have thanked me a few times for being nice to newbies by trying to remain reasonable. I think that it’s important to present a more mature approach; so many good groups have been over-run with the more extreme members that newbies really have no place to go for more balanced information.

Amen. I hear about, read about, see sooo many “submissive” men who do absolutely nothing but whine about how difficult it is to find someone to be “submissive” to or how difficult it is to convince their wives/girlfriends to take a more “dominant” role.

And I always think, really? You’re standing there trying to shove down their throats a very ritualized, specific fantasy that is all and selfishly yours, completely packaged and all of the blanks filled in with NO ROOM for what *they* actually want – because it is what tickles YOUR fancy. And you want them to adopt it whole cloth and call it “for them,” when everything about it drips and oozes “for you.” Imagine THAT being “difficult” …. go figure. *rolls eyes*

Sue – I have to admit that it took me a while to come to this kind of understanding. I had a gf once who, when I mentioned something about getting her some leather and a whip, immediately screwed up her face and said something like “Ugh! Why would I want some pathetic little guy who wants to be humiliated?” I never raised the issue with her again, but it surprised me that she had such a reaction. And then I started to think about it…

Almost – if you want to buy me from Bitchy, she might be willing to let me go, real cheap. All I do is (pretend) to be toiling out in this field, anyway.

I myself have been more or less converted by my submissive boyfriend. I didn’t start out “vanilla” (an insulting term anyway IMO) – I was more like a bottom but adamantly not a submissive except sort of submissive deep down but never never never would I want to go there for real.

Ripe for the pickings, I guess.

What my (20-something) boyfriend really wants, I think, is for some very strong (but fair and compassionate) woman who knows what she wants, and who of course has some compatible desires, to take his service and wrest from him what she desires. And to praise, admire, and be proud of him for his service. And to be stern and commmitted when he falls short.

I convinced him early on that if he kept putting the (figurative) leash in my hand and pushing me forward ahead of him, he’d never get to feel me pull him of my own accord. He managed to mostly stop pushing. He managed to offer. And, sometimes, just ask. (Asking to have your nipples pinched is so much more the right attitude than “recommending” nipple pinching. By asking, you’re accepting the possibiity of simply being turned down. If you recommend it, and I don’t follow the “advice,” then you’ll want to start thinking I’m just incompetent. And I am, but fuck it.)

But a lot of the beginning of our d/s relationship, and some of what we still do, consists of him simply making it clear to me, over and over as needed, that he wants to serve me, that he wants me to use him for what I want. This has enabled me to at least ask for (if not always demand) what I think I would enjoy. In the beginning, my big revelation was, “Crap. I should have been like this all along, even in non-bdsm relationships!”

But it’s hard (I think) to have your supposed dom asking you for things like they are favors from you to her. But on my side, feeling like I have the power to simply demand or take things takes time. So the offer from him had to be sincere and accompanied by, let’s face it, patience. Or else he could go out and try to find himself a dom who has some experience and knows what she’s doing, or to whom it comes more naturally. And I’m so glad he didn’t.

Sorry, I know this is slightly off-topic and way long for a comment, but it’s what comes to mind with this stuff.

As far as the actual topic, it’s only lately that I’ve been able to get some kind of a paradigm shift that is allowing me to feel comfortable with the submission idea itself. That “pathetic groveling worm” stuff is so pervasive. And I have a big (and acknowledgely hypocritical) problem with female subs and male doms. I enjoyed the reality of dominating him – I’ve enjoyed every step along the way, and the more submissive he gets the more I love it – but had no sensible way of processing it mentally. Reading these very sensible blogs (this one, Bitchy Jones, Maymay, and some others) is really helping me a lot.